After Many Miles in a Chevy Van, a Rough Gig in a Place Called Hindsight

From left, Keegan DeWitt, Eric Wilson, Harry West and Jeremy Bullock, the band Wild Cub, had their instruments stolen while staying in Brooklyn.Credit
Christopher Berkey for The New York Times

There are joyless pockets of New York City that should be renamed Hindsight, based on the stories from visitors. “In Hindsight,” these tales begin, rarely ending well.

This particular stretch of Hindsight was on Dean Street between Carlton Avenue and Vanderbilt Avenue in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. It looked, after half an hour or so of driving around after a long night, like a mighty fine place to park the 15-passenger 1997 Chevy van that has taken the band Wild Cub all over the country, and has been a home away from the group’s home in Nashville. The 200,000-mile mark was approaching.

In Hindsight, after parking and walking around the corner, “I saw some busted glass on the side of the road, but I just kind of let it slide,” said Harry West, 21, the band’s bass player. His first bass, a gift from his father on his 16th birthday, was inside the van. “It wasn’t a crazy-nice bass, but it was a great starter bass,” Mr. West said.

Also in the van was an E-series Japanese Stratocaster, a highly sought-after electric guitar. The lead singer, and the band’s old, married guy at age 30, Keegan DeWitt, had snapped it up a few months ago.

In Hindsight, these instruments should have been removed from the van at night, but they never were. The apartment where the band members were staying, with a middle-school friend of the band’s guitarist and keyboard player, Jeremy Bullock, 28, was many blocks away in Park Slope. They left the van.

It was April 29, a great day off between shows. The band took in a Mets game and went bowling in Williamsburg. Their first show, at the Mercury Lounge a few nights earlier, had been a success, and they were excited to be playing Webster Hall the following night, opening for Atlas Genius. The show was sold out. Wild Cub, a melodic electronic pop group improbably based in the heart of country music, had been granted the coveted “band to keep an eye on” label by music writers.

That night, no one gave much thought about a van to keep an eye on, and the next morning, Mr. DeWitt returned to find a sheet of paper on the windshield. It was a handwritten note on a letterhead from Primo Uniform Rental Service. The company’s office was nearby.

“Your van was broken into and the drums were left on the street,” the note read. “We put them in our basement for safekeeping. Call # below.”

Someone had broken the lock on the van’s back door. Four guitars, including the prized bass and the Stratocaster, two expensive synthesizers and other equipment that police officers would need help to spell — all gone.

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They went to Primo and met their Brooklyn good Samaritan. “They were bummed out,” said Mario Ippolito, 52, the no-nonsense owner and a kind of spokesman for Hindsight. He said he told them, “I know you guys are not from New York, but I think this is the stupidest thing you could have done, leaving it in the van like that.”

The Webster Hall show was a few hours away, and the band was determined to play as if it had something to prove.

They started working the phones, borrowing guitars and equipment from old friends in New York. Mr. DeWitt ran to the Guitar Center store in the Atlantic Terminal Mall. “The world’s most depressing mall,” he said. “The least sexy music store purchase I’ve ever made. Five cables, a guitar.”

They made it to the hall, in the East Village, and worked up their set list using the unfamiliar equipment. They made a joke of their misfortune for the audience, welcoming everyone to their Kickstarter launch. “We felt like we won a lot of the crowd that night, and not just because of a sob story,” Mr. DeWitt said.

The band put a note on its Facebook page: “Thank you New York. You gave us two sold out shows in one week, we gave you half our equipment.”

The next night, Mr. Bullock slept in the van, since the lock was still broken. “He woke up at one point and the van was rocking,” Mr. DeWitt said. “It was a lady in front of him trying to parallel park and she kept bumping the van.”

The police said Friday that there had been no arrests.

Back in Nashville, the members of Wild Cub were loading their van, preparing to head south to Hangout Fest in Gulf Shores, Ala., where they were to play a show Saturday afternoon. They are scheduled to return to Brooklyn in June, and plan to keep well away from that stretch of Dean Street.

E-mail: crimescene@nytimes.com

Twitter: @mwilsonnyt

A version of this article appears in print on May 18, 2013, on Page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: After Many Miles in a Chevy Van, A Rough Gig in a Place Called Hindsight. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe